


Pacemaker

by Withstarryeyes



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Fainting, Gen, Heart Disease, Hiding Medical Issues, Hurt Winn, Passing Out, Winn is an idiot and needs to come clean, sick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-05
Updated: 2017-06-14
Packaged: 2018-11-09 05:09:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11097570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Withstarryeyes/pseuds/Withstarryeyes
Summary: Winn has just found out that he has a heart disorder. He refuses to tell Kara and the gang about it because he's afraid of being seen as weak. Consequences ensue.





	1. He's hiding this thing

“Mr. Schott?” The nurse called from the corner. Winn looked up from his worn magazine, the corner torn and crumpled from people just like him, bending in anxious anticipation of their visit.

He nodded and set it down, collecting his keys, trying to ignore the way they shook in his hands and moved towards the nurse.

“You’ll be meeting with Dr. Drake in room 107,” The nurse smiled and Winn tried to smile back but he knew it looked like a sheepish whimper compared to what a real smile looked like. Curse his awkward existence.

“Here you go,” She said before dumping him in a clinical room with light pink wallpaper and a few generic photos scattered about.

It was just a yearly check up, but Winn hated doctors (who didn’t?) and he never liked going. They just prodded him for an hour to tell him to exercise more, but otherwise he was relatively healthy aside from some childhood asthma.

“Winn, my man, how’s it going?” Dr. Drake called from the doorway and Winn smiled, hopping off his chair to shake the man’s hand. He was an old college friend who dropped out of Winn’s computer programming major to adopt a pre-med path.

“It’s only been a year Jared,” Winn chuckled.

“Well a year is long in doctor time--I work 48 hour shifts sometimes Winn,” Jared said in mock horror.

Winn laughed, “I get that man,” _you have no idea._

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Check the eyes, the ears, the bloodwork. Winn sighed, rolling his eyes and checking his watch.

“When can I get out of here?” he whined, Jared shot him a look.

“Are you suggesting I rush your health?” Winn glared, Jared cracked a smile, “yeah okay let me listen to your lungs and heart and then you’re all set. “

“Thank God!” Winn declared, throwing his arms up to the heavens.

The stethoscope was cold on his chest and Winn shivered, but settled when Jared scowled at his movement...except the scowl wasn’t changing as Jared shifted his instrument around on Winn’s chest.

“What? What’s wrong?” Winn sucked in a breath, setting his hand on his friend’s shoulder.

“Oh, nothing to worry about man, I just want to run a few more tests to be sure.” Jared’s reassurance fell short.

“Sure…”

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Winn had Hypertrophic Cardiomyothopy, or really what was important was that his fucking heart wasn’t working properly. _Well, shit._

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There was a fucking alien loose in the DEO. _AN ALIEN IN THE DEO_ . Winn was not okay with this, nor was Alex nor Kara nor anyone really but nobody really had a choice except hiding in the closet and hoping to god that nobody decided to check in there. Winn had not been trained to hold a gun, he could speak 7 different alien languages but nobody taught him how not to fucking die. Really it was a _nice_ surprise.

He jumped a foot in the air when his earpiece crackled on, considering the only company he had was a nice leather coat and some heels next to 5 thousand black op outfits.

“Winn?”

“Jesus Christ!” There was giggling on the other end, “What, Alex?”

“Did you seriously just get scared because I said your name?”

“It sounded like it came from behind me!! And since there’s a giant insect romping around with big mantis eyes and molars that could crush my spine, I’d say it’s not uncommon to jump when someone addresses you,” he squeaked.

And then it was behind him, crawling out of the goddamn vent as he fumbled with the doorknob.

“Um...guys, yeah I found it.” He squealed into the earpiece.

“I’m on my way Winn, just run,”

“Yeah, running sounds like a solid plan…” Winn mumbled as the door broke free, the insect dropping from the ceiling and hissing like a cockroach. “Running sounds like the best, oOh-kay.”

And then Winn was sprinting and panting and sorta screaming and his chest was hurting and his head was light and the second, the mere moment the bug thing lunged at him Kara hit it with her heat vision and it exploded and Winn passed out.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

“Winn?” Kara’s voice floated in his ears amongst the ringing and the echoing of every noise outside of him.

“Hrgh?” he moaned, plucking his eyes open.

“Are you okay?!” She cried and Winn shot up, groaning again and putting a hand against his aching chest. “W-what’s wrong, are you having a heart attack?”

 _Heart? Oh shit, yeah he’s hiding this._ “N-no,” Winn stuttered, his eyes wider and his brain more online now. “Just hit my shoulder on the ground when I dove out of the way,” He smiled and Kara melted, the tension in her shoulders gone.

“Oh, god, Winn you scared me!”

_Yeah well Kara I’m scaring myself too…_

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


	2. Winn's thoughts didn't make sense anymore

He was still light headed when he stumbled into some chairs on the way to the breakroom, his brain not able to send the proper motor function to his limbs. He wheezed, he was dizzy and he needed help but not from anyone here.

No. Nobody here _could_ know because then they’d tell Kara and the whole damn secret would be over. But before anything he needed to sit the fuck down because his legs were trembling and he felt like a damn chihuahua.

His vision was going black and his chest still hurt and Winn cursed because this was really happening and there was nothing he could do to reverse it.

His laptop was on the table and hesitantly, with slightly gasping breaths, he opened it and typed his condition into google.

_Into the rabbit hole we shall go…_

_\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------_

“Winn, did you sleep here?” He jumped like five feet into the air, his notes scattering everywhere, his loopy handwriting detailing his heart and the valves and the thickening of his muscle. His chair turned and Winn toppled onto the floor like a jenga piece.

“Huh? Whaaa- oh yeah,” He covered his eyes with his arm.

“You need to stop doing that,” Kara pointed out, sitting on the table, her cape brushing a few of his pages and Winn pretended to roll his eyes while collecting him.

“What are you working on anyway?” She reached for a paper, her hand curling around one with his condition labeled in bright, bold letters

“Just a personal--nerdy--project,” Her eyebrows went up, “I-I’m learning another language.”

Understanding lit up her face and she smiled sheepishly, knowing that wasn’t something she cared to hear about. “Good luck,” she wished him before disappearing into the bowels of the DEO, her red cape fading to a dark maroon in the shadows.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

His chest was doing that painful lighter than air thing again and Winn was so fucking over it. He scrunched inward on himself, seated on a closed toilet seat to conceal his feet as he heard the door to the bathroom swing open.

He was wheezing and he knew people could hear it.

“Winn?” It was James and Winn rolled his eyes, knowing that he would drag him out dead or alive.

Dead right now was a little more likely.

“Can’t a nerd go to the bathroom in peace?” He asked, unfurling his body and stretching his legs. His back was covered in sweat and as he stood up his thoughts swirled together in an intangible mess.

He swung the door open and wobbled to the sink, turning around to face his friend and rest his body weight nonchalantly on the sink behind him.

James’ eyes narrowed at him, “You’ve been in here for half an hour.” Winn shrugged. “What’s going on with you man? You’ve been avoiding going out into the field with me. I thought you got over the whole afraid of dying thing.” Winn fucking flinched and then winced as his chest bowed with pain.

“I-I did,” he stammered. This meeting was all about him begging James to let him stay inside and it wasn't because he didn't want to help Guardian it was because his heart kept hurting and... James caught his arm, his heart raced and not in the swooning-falling-in-love kind but the my-heart-is-more-than-fucked kind. His legs fell out from beneath him.

“Winn!” James followed him, diving towards the ground like a hawk aiming for a fish in an ocean, Winn’s thoughts didn’t really make sense anymore.

He could feel his heart thumping against his chest like a man trying to break down a door, his head felt like it was swooping down onto his chest then snapping back up like a yoyo, his fingers were numb and his lips tingled. He thought he was going to die and yet the only thing he could think to say to James, the only thing he could think to be his dying message was, “Don’t tell Kara.”

James was going to actually kill him if he survived this.


	3. Winn gets to be a cyborg

Haze. The entire world felt blurry, his tongue thick, his chest still blindly thumping in time with the pain echoing throughout his body.

“Ugh,” Winn groaned and he felt a hand tighten in his own.

“Winn?” The voice wavered and he couldn’t quite place it, “Why didn’t you tell me you’d been having tachycardic episodes?”

“Scary, scary dizzy episodes,” Winn corrected, slurring the s’s and finally prying his eyes open.

Jared sat on his bed, looking concerned, as doctors whose patients with heart conditions collapse in front of their friends with chest pain.

Winn sighed, it was going to be a night of angry people.

_Fuck…_

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

They gave him jello and water and blankets before cracking down on him. He had half his lime gelatin down before Jared put a hand on Winn’s shoulder, his lips set sternly.

“Winn I need to know what symptoms you’ve been having,  I think we may need to start taking action.”

Winn gulped down his bite of jello, despite knowing the slimy snack would slide smoothly down it felt like it lodged itself in the middle of his throat.

“I’m fi--,” Winn tried. Jared wouldn’t let him even finish that.

“You’re not! Winn, as a patient and a friend I have to tell you that you are not fine. You should have told me you were having tachycardia.” Jared blew out a breath and Winn’s stomach swooped. He was hurting his friends, scratch that, _had_ hurt his friends by keeping all this from them.

“I know,” He conceded because his college buddy looked like he wanted to cry and Winn was really regretting all this. He knew James had to be stowed away in some corner with lukewarm coffee and a freaked out mind going wild.

“I’ve been having chest pain,” Jared looked up, surprised that Winn gave in, and pulled out a notepad. “The tachycardic episodes have been pretty non-stop, dizziness, shortness of breath…” Winn drew circles on this thumbs. He felt so weak and so dumb and like when he was watching his father terrorize the city. He felt like he knew everything except what was helpful. He felt like he was still working at Catco, lying to Kara about his feelings, and being put down daily by his boss.

He couldn’t even imagine what it was like for his friends.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jared lectured and lectured and in the end Winn needed surgery. A pacemaker, he was going to become part cyborg and well that was the only good thing Winn could find out about this.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The pacemaker was not a good thing, Winn decided because before the pacemaker was time in hospital, time for _visitors_.

_Visitors_ like Kara and James and everyone else he lied to. He just didn’t want to feel as guilty as he was.

Is it too late for him to become a criminal mastermind?

Did that ship sail when he learned to program the DEO software and all the alien languages and agree to go out in the field… fuck, yeah it was too late. He already sold his soul to the good guys. Damn his obsession with superheroes.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

First came James.

He came into the room like he was nervous, slowly shutting the door, robotically sitting in the side chair to the right of Winn’s bed.

“James, my man, can I offer you the drink of my people? We have water, carbonated water, and terrible lemonade.” James didn’t laugh at Winn’s joke.

“I couldn’t keep it Winn.”

The secret, yeah Winn figured that. “Come on, I wanted that engraved on my gravestone.” James didn’t laugh at that one either.

“She needed to know Winn, you were dying! You know how she felt when we kept Guardian from her. She wasn’t angry Winn, she was scared because I’m human and she’s not and she cares about us. I had to tell her, and I’m sorry for that, but you owe me an apology because I had to see her horrendous terrified face and that is not a face I should ever have to see again.” Winn nodded because fair enough. Kara was honest with James about her identity, she’d trusted the both of them and Winn hadn’t kept up the friend bargain.

“It’s okay, hey James! You know what I get out of this deal?” He waggled his eyebrows, James rolled his eyes as Winn leaned in and whispered, “I get to be a cyborg!”

It was actually the coolest thing (He changed his mind again).

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Then came Kara.

She was the hardest out of all of them. Winn loved Kara, he loved her kindness, her strength, her morality. He loved Kara and he had let her down.

He just hoped he could gain her forgiveness because seeing Kara angry at him, or fearful for his death or whatever… he couldn’t take that a second time without actually dying.

She took his hand, James was wrong, her terrified face wasn’t horrifying it was empowering. It amazed Winn that a girl so scared could be so courageous. Fuck, why wasn’t he dating her again? Ah yes, Kara wasn’t into him and he would respect that (even if he pined on the inside).

“Winn, oh,” Her face screwed up and she messed with his IV, rolling his between her fingers.

“It’s not as bad as it looks.” She made a face, “Hey it’s better than a dream world parasite or kyrptonite.” She punched him and holy wow that hurt.

“Shut up.” She wiped a few stray tears, “Winn?” He knew that voice, he dreaded it, “Why didn’t you tell me.”

_Because I was scared, because I was in denial, becuase I wanted to be strong enough to handle something on my own._

“Because you needed to focus on saving the city not me.” That’s when she looked like she was going to kill him.

“Winn, I’m always going to need you. I wouldn’t be saving the city without you. My suit? Yours. My research? Yours. The DEO? You help with that.”

Winn nodded, “I know and I’m sorry. I guess I just underestimated my value,” He smiled sheepishly and for once Kara could see him as he was talking about his Dad in jail.

She went to move into his bed and Winn questioned the action. “Move over,” she said, “You almost died I need some time to make sure you’re really okay.”

And who was Winn to argue with that? An asshole, really. You don’t freak your friends out then deny comfort.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Then there was J’onn.

It was a brief meeting. The green martian liked Winn just fine but he was really just an agent under his gaze.

There was offered time off, there was a wish for good luck and in the brief fleeting moment between Winn’s bed and the door there was even a quiet murmur: “I need you better because we can’t run the DEO without you, Agent. Is that clear.”

Winn cleared his throat, “Yes, sir.”

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

His friends all stood by him before he went into surgery. Winn was scared and he still felt that tug to hide all this to the team.

_~~He was weak. He was broken.~~ _  He was loved and he had some kickass friends. He was a dumbass with a screwed up heart but at least he didn’t have to hide it anymore.

And how did it feel to be out in the open?

Wonderful. Winn felt wonderful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys!! I'm glad you guys liked this story :) I hope you like the ending too. I loved writing this and I loved seeing all your support and feedback. Who knows maybe I'll start writing more for Supergirl. 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading and enjoying!!  
> -C


End file.
